Image source, Karen Reissmann

"As a student nurse the first place I worked was a 'psycho-geriatric' ward at Springfield Hospital, in Manchester, which used to be an old workhouse and asylum.

“There was a woman in her eighties who had been a patient since the age of six.

"She had been formally diagnosed as an ‘imbecile’ when she was first admitted.

"The only thing that I could see wrong with her was her extra-large tongue which protruded from her mouth making speech difficult.

"There was another elderly patient on the same ward who had been born at the hospital after her mother was sent to the asylum for becoming pregnant outside of wedlock.

"This illegitimate child had been left in the hospital all her life and was allowed to stay for the remainder of her days."

“I also remember the tea we served from an 18in (45cm) teapot.

"The 'tea dust’ would go in first. It wasn’t tea leaves - it was the cheapest tea going!

"Then a pint of milk would be poured in and a bowl of sugar added.

"Everyone apart from the diabetics had sugar in their tea. The patients weren’t even asked what their preference was.

"Eventually, we fought for the patients to have smaller teapots so they could pour their own tea, but despite this extra choice, patients who’d been in hospital for a long time used to tell us 'that’s not how it’s done’."

Image source, Xavier White

"I suffered a near fatal head injury when I was knocked off my bike as I cycled home in March 1985.

"I spent 10 days in a coma in the Intensive Care Unit at Kings College Hospital in Camberwell.

"My family didn’t know whether I’d live or die.

"I had to learn to walk and talk again.

"I was a very fidgety patient and I used to get up in the middle of the night and fall straight over. The nurses would have to come and put me back into bed but then I would get up and fall over again.

"By my 19th birthday, on 17 April, I’d been moved to the Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital, London.

“It was just a week or so after I had come out of the coma. I was still very poorly so can’t remember much of it.

"But I do remember that lots of people came to visit me and there were lots of birthday cards all over the walls.

"I just wasn’t skilled at eating by then - it was one of the things I had to learn again - and I got cream cake all over my face. I loved the cream cake."

What are your memories of the NHS?

To mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS we are sharing people's memories and stories of the health service from across the decades.

We'll be posting stories from patients and staff as they reflect on their time on wards, in hospitals or surgeries. We'll also be answering your questions about the service as it has evolved over the past 70 years.

If you have a story, picture or question you wish to share get in touch by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

Image source, Dominic Excell

"When I had my stroke my wife called 999 and there was a paramedic at the door almost before she had put the phone back on the holder.

"He confirmed my self-diagnosis, made sure I was stabilised and within a short space of time I was whisked off to Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

"The hospital had been informed of my arrival and a specialist nurse was waiting for me.

"I was rushed into the stroke ward and examined by very competent doctors and taken down to the scanning department.

"I was treated with great professionalism and importantly in my case, speed.

"This all happened late on a Saturday afternoon.The staff were absolutely brilliant, as was the entire experience - not that I would want to repeat it.

"The first week passed in something of a blur with lots of tests to ascertain the extent of my brain damage.

"The doctors took the time to explain to my wife and I not only the seriousness of my condition but also that they expected me to make a full recovery.

"I was unlucky to have the stroke but very lucky to be treated by highly motivated and professional staff.

"My heartfelt thanks go to all at Blackpool's Victoria Hospital who pulled me through the worst time of my life and who never failed to keep my spirits up for the three months that I stayed with them."

Image source, Vikki Fenlon

"When I was 17 I was rushed into Brook Hospital in Woolwich, unconscious.

"I was diagnosed with brain abscesses and spent three months in a neurosurgical unit. I had to have numerous operations to clear the abscesses, and later had a stroke which paralysed the right side of my face and the left side of my body.

"Due to the disease I had to have the front of my skull removed and it was replaced by an acrylic plate. This left me with a scare from ear to ear.

"By this point in November 1965, I already had the ambition to become a nurse myself. I had always been caring.

"My dad was reluctant to allow me because he thought nurses were treated no better than skivvies or servants.

"He was remembering the time my grandad was hospitalised in 1918 when I am sure this was the case.

"But with me in hospital, he got the opportunity to see how the nursing profession had moved on and he changed his mind."

Image source, Lucy Holdcroft

"I had anorexia and in late 2013 I'd lost so much weight that after three days of not even being able to keep water down, I lost the ability to see or walk.

"A few days later I was diagnosed with a rare, life-threatening illness called superior mesenteric artery syndrome. It’s a condition where the passage between the stomach and the intestines has become so small that food or drink can’t be digested.

"I was 14 and my mum was told by staff at Royal Stoke Hospital that I was just a day away from dying when I arrived at A&E.

"The doctors and nurses were able to diagnose and treat me so quickly.

"They helped me gain weight and slowly my stomach compression eased. My body was able to almost completely tolerate drinking and eating again just three months later.

"The staff also gave me emotional and mental health support too.

"One children’s play worker was absolutely paramount in helping me to cope with what was a really terrifying, month-long experience, by taking me to the café or bringing board games to my bed. And there was a paediatric nurse who would bring me hot chocolate.

“They really cared about me as a person.

“I’m forever grateful for the amazing treatment that saved my life and I am doing much, much better now."

Image source, Gloria Jakes

"In 1950 I had my tonsils and adenoids removed on the south wing of Bedford Hospital. I was seven years old.

"They brought a consultant over from Germany to remove obstructions from my sinuses at the same time.

"I was told by one of the nurses that all the medical staff on shift watched from a viewing gallery because the operation was the first of its type carried out in England.

"I lived in a very old council property and unknown to everyone there were large fungi growing under the floorboards in my bedroom. I was struggling to breathe but nobody knew it was because I was inhaling the fungus spoors.

"Then the fungus was spotted at the side of the bed. We hadn’t been in that flat for even a year but when the fungus was found we had to make an emergency move to a new house. They were ripping up the floorboards as we left and it looked like something from a horror movie, the toadstools were green and massive.

"My mother was told the operation would help me to breathe better for about 10 years but then I would need further treatment.

"I’m nearly 75 now though and never had breathing problems like it again. In my mind, a miracle happened the day I met the German consultant."

Image source, Sean Pannell

"Dr Thomas was my consultant at Mount Vernon Hospital in Middlesex from 1982 to 1997.

"He gave me some great advice, advice that I now pass on to other people with diabetes.

"He told me 'You have a condition which you must respect, but you are its master'.”

"There was a professional distance between us but I saw him as a friend.

"I could tell he respected me for the way I mastered my condition.

"Sadly on the day I was due to be discharged from hospital Dr Thomas had a car crash and suffered serious brain damage. I never saw him again.

"We all have regrets in life and one of mine is that I never got the chance to thank him for looking after me for so many years. He was my hero."

What are your memories of the NHS?

To mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS we are sharing people's memories and stories of the health service from across the decades.

We'll be posting stories from patients and staff as they reflect on their time on wards, in hospitals or surgeries. We'll also be answering your questions about the service as it has evolved over the past 70 years.

If you have a story, picture or question you wish to share get in touch by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

Image source, Richard Crow

"I was on the ward at the National Spinal Injuries Centre in May 1977 following a motorcycle crash I was 19-years-old at the time.

"Karen started her training that same year. She started in August and was one of the full time nurses on the ward.

"It was one of the other nurses, Agnes, who got us together.

"In between bed baths she was fixing me up with dates. She’d tell me that she thought Karen liked me and then tell Karen that she thought I liked her.

"The ward matron used to say to Karen that you shouldn’t get involved with the patients but she was married to a former patient herself, so it was a case of do as I say and not as I do."

Image source, Bernadette Stratton

"In February 1980 when I started training at Guy's Hospital in London patients used to get a piece of plain sponge cake with their coffee or tea in the afternoon.

"We used to get a patients to deliver it. It was good for moral and helped them to socialise too.

"But then cake became bread and butter with jam, then just bread and butter.

"It was due to cuts at the time.

"We used to say that it wasn’t like it used to be."

Bernadette left the NHS in 1984 to work as a nurse in Virginia in the US.

Image source, Michelle Wilson

Michelle has spent her entire career at the same ward at the Poole Maternity Unit in Dorset where she has looked after two generations of children, some from the same family, in that time.

Here she is pictured with the first set of twins she looked after.

"These twins were born early and I think I looked after them for the entire 10 days they were on the unit.

"The parents named their daughter Nicola Michelle after me.

"I guess they'll be 30 years old now!"